


First Time: Three Little Words

by FromFanToStan



Series: First Times [1]
Category: One Direction (Band), zayn malik - Fandom
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fix It Fic, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 11:30:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17559560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FromFanToStan/pseuds/FromFanToStan
Summary: Zayn and Harry grew up together, really, being in a band from their teenage years. Even if they hadn't grown close, their relationship was going to be intense. This is about the first time they confess their feelings, and it's fine after all. Nobody dies, not even of embarrassment.





	First Time: Three Little Words

The first time Harry tells Zayn he loves him he whispers it so softly that he’s sure that Zayn, sleeping peacefully and utterly still beside him, won’t hear. He can’t help himself, even if he isn’t certain that he knows he means it. Zayn is as beautiful as ever and it’s been so long that his heart expands in his chest until it demands a release. His voice is so tentative and gentle that he hears in it a hint rather than a declaration. And yet. It is the first time in his life that Harry has said this sentence aloud to someone he desires, even if Zayn doesn’t hear him, even if he never finds the courage to say it again.

Zayn’s hair is long on top again, and it falls over one eye as if directing Harry to his impossible lashes feathered over the perfect skin of his perfect face. Back in the band days when they had a rare hotel night together, he always woke first and would slip out of bed to open the curtains, slide back under the duvet, and look his fill, except that he could never get enough. The avid nature of his stare makes him see himself as greedy and somehow wrong. It unsettles him, this never being sated, this feeling of being the needy one. He doesn't like it, being out of control like this, but he has come to accept it.

Again he looks and looks. His whispered “I love you” lingers in the air like a memory, like a confession, like joy. He allows himself to imagine a life with a steady companion, a life without anywhere to run. He allows himself to see a future with Zayn.

He wonders how he went so long without the sight of him, without the scent of his cigarettes, without the way his pulse quickens when he makes Zayn smile. He wonders if when Zayn wakes he’ll smile or frown to see Harry in his bed. He imagines what he will do if Zayn smiles (kiss him, run his fingers along the bones of his slim side, rub his pretty brown nipples because even if Zayn says they aren’t sensitive it makes Harry crazy to feel them harden at his touch). He worries what he will do if Zayn frowns (ask what’s wrong, soothe him as he used to by stroking his cheekbones, ask him quietly if he should go, beg his forgiveness). He doesn’t know, can’t fathom a frown after last night. His natural optimism imagines a sleepy smile, warm hands reaching out for him.

Harry doesn’t know if this is love, since he’s never been in love before. He is used to being the one who is loved, and the extravagance of this emotion makes him wonder how anyone can bear it. He knows that Zayn is essential to his well-being. He knows that the thought of being parted again makes him dizzy and afraid.

“I love you” doesn’t seem like enough. Harry wishes he had more and better words, that he never left school after sixth form, so he could sort these feelings of desire and need and helplessness into a box with a label, and he could tie a ribbon around it and give it to Zayn. He waits for him to wake up.

****

**************

The first time Zayn tells Harry he loves him they are awkwardly moving about each other in Zayn’s kitchen. It's been a long time since they spent a night together, and Harry no longer knows Zayn’s haphazard system of organizing the cups and spoons, where he keeps the tea nor what his favorite kind is in the morning. They keep bumping into each other and apologizing, and every time their bodies collide Zayn feels like crying at this proof that Harry is here, that he’s in Zayn’s kitchen wearing nothing at all, his lean body muscular and manly now and still the most desirable Zayn has ever seen. His slow, lumbering drawl of “sorry, I can’t seem to stay out of your way” makes Zayn’s heart turn into a swollen river of equal parts joy and foreboding. What does it mean, that Harry is here?

As they wait, propped side by side against the counter, for the kettle to boil, Harry reaches over to stroke Zayn’s belly, long fingers rubbing the strip of hair below his navel as he murmurs, “Show me all your new tats and what they mean, yeah? I was too busy last night to want to notice.” 

Zayn grins at him, because this is his dirty boy, the one who whispered filth to him on stage to try to break his composure, his lover who can never be completely sated, the only person whose drive matches and at times exceeds his own, and he knows that they’ll have tea and toast before, maybe, making it back to the bed. Before his mind can edit his mouth, he states, as though noting that the kettle is about to boil, “I love you, H. Always have, I reckon.”

The words that have nestled under his ribs for years echo in the misty room, because now the kettle is boiling, its shrill chirp too late to warn Zayn against the declaration that snaps and crackles in the air dangerously. He has said it. He can’t take it back. His normal reticence and self control are overwhelmed at having his heart’s desire in front of him.

He isn’t prepared for Harry’s wide eyes, nor for his startled, “You heard me this morning! I was sure you were asleep!” He sidesteps. “Yeah, well, couldn’t be sure you said it but yeah…” Then his beautiful Harry steps in front of him and pulls him in, with his miles of warm, soft skin and his crazy quilt of tattoos, and whispers in his ear, “I meant it.”

And Zayn lets Harry lead, in this as in so much else, lifts his face, smiling, for Harry to kiss, turns off the kettle with his left hand as Harry takes his right, tea and toast forgotten, and follows his lover down the hall and up the sunlit stairs and back into the bedroom where, once again, they know as they have always known what to say to each other.

**Author's Note:**

> This has turned into a series. If you have any suggestions for firsts you'd like to read about, please hit me up in the comments. Thanks for reading!


End file.
